


Like an Explosion in Slow Motion

by Rinari7



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Angst, But the Bering and Wells is only hinted at, Definitely Not for Pyka Fans, F/F, F/M, Post-Canon, Warehouse Family, With an Optimistic Ending, i don't even know what this is, this is not what i wanted to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 11:34:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15929606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinari7/pseuds/Rinari7
Summary: Myka has been through all kinds of hell due to the Warehouse; what they don't tell you is that it's hell when it's gone, too.





	Like an Explosion in Slow Motion

**Author's Note:**

> This is... uh. Assuming the mess that was Season 5 happened, how does everyone deal when the Warehouse is actually gone? (It goes terribly, actually, at least for Myka and Pete and Steve.)  
> This isn't particularly shippy; Myka and Pete break up, but there isn't much Myka/HG either, just a couple moments of Myka being in love/jealous/etc. that have little bearing on the rest of the story.  
> Read at your own risk.
> 
> Many, many thanks go to the lovely tinknevertalks for looking over this for me, poking me to write a proper ending, and just generally making sure the mess that was the first draft of this was not inflicted upon the general public. You're the best. <3

She can't point to one instant when the chain reaction started, not even in hindsight. Maybe it was the moment the new cornerstone was struck, but maybe it was the moment Paracelsus was unbronzed, or maybe even the moment one of her normal cells split and began to mutate into a tumor, or maybe…

In the end, it doesn't really matter what sets off the bomb, not to those who are caught in the blast.

 

 

It hits Artie first. Slowly, slowly, as the very back aisle begins to fade from view to god-knows-where (and they won't tell them, won't tell the people from the past about the future, to keep them from trying to muscle in on it, she supposes), he stops going near those back aisles. Stops going anywhere where he can see that gap.

When that gap gets wide enough to be visible from his office, he pulls the shutters down over the windows, and keeps them closed.

 

 

Claudia starts disappearing, suddenly, more and more, arriving often in the company of Mrs. Frederic (though the latter never stays).

“Where do you keep going?” Myka asks her, softly, one day, in the B&B over a quiet lunch. “I thought you didn't _want_ to be Caretaker.”

“So did I.” A quiet wry, smile, precious in its rarity, because she is hardly ever quite so sincere or still. “But the Warehouse is my _home_ , you know, and I feel like — like it's a part of me, and I'm a part of it, and I just can't — I can't leave. I'll be an agent for as long as I can, and then when I can't —” She lifts one shoulder, and her smile turns almost beatific, serene, with the knowledge and wisdom of many many years beyond Claudia’s age behind it. An alien gesture, on Claudia; everything is changing, absolutely everything, the members of Myka’s little Warehouse family included. Her heart cracks. “I can't explain it. I’ll stay with the Warehouse, and it’ll stay with me.”

“I'm — I'm glad for you, Claud.” She is; she really is. “That you know what you want, and you're — moving towards it. I'm proud of you.”

Claudia ducks her head, a little bashful, the girl Myka knows again. “I can’t really take any credit. In the Warehouse, things just sort of happen to you, you know?”

She does know.

 

 

With his partner away, and Artie avoiding setting foot on more and more sections of the Warehouse floor, shelving and inventory falls mostly to Steve. He bears it with his natural quiet, with a sort of stoicism Myka both envies and doesn't.

“I could take over for a while,” she offers, one day. “You go on retrieval with Pete, and I can stay here and keep things running. It's not fair that you're stuck here so much.”

He smiles at her, tired and terribly melancholy. “No, you and Pete are a team. And I kind of prefer it here. I'm not reminded of — anything,” and he gestures vaguely, “So often.”

“Okay.” And she understands, even if she doesn't really know what he's talking about. “But if you ever change your mind.”

He nods, and his inhale seems a little lighter, a little less weight on his shoulders. “Thank you, Myka.”

“You're welcome.” She brushes her fingers over his arm, a brief gesture intended to offer comfort where there isn't really any to be had, and leaves.

 

 

She and Pete can pretend, for the most part, that everything is normal. At least on the surface. Or at least they try.

He still eats anything remotely edible in sight (which was very bad the time they were looking for that batch of Kinder Eggs) and she still argues with him over the music in the car (she wants opera, he likes Nickelback) and they still get rooms with two separate twin beds.

But then they'll bag an artifact that belongs in one of the missing sections, and they’ll have to go down to the empty section of the Warehouse, and put it inside a goo-slathered box, and then as soon as the box is shut it will vanish right before their eyes.

And Pete kisses her, when they get to the door of the B&B (because they both take her “never at work” seriously). He's gentle about it, and it's nice, and then she’ll let him walk her backwards up to his bedroom, and there’s nothing normal about that. Sometimes, they have sex, which is a little weird, and sometimes they don't have sex, which is even weirder: start and stop, driven by the strangeness of it all, the _is-this-even-happening_ , and sometimes she stops it and sometimes he does, and sometimes they don't even start. (And _god_ , she’s happy those nights, too, maybe happiest, because everything is wrong in so many tiny ways but at least she still has her partner beside her.)

 

 

Usually, she tries not to think of Helena. There's the occasional e-mail, utterly mundane things. Furniture restoration, Victorian recreation had been Helena’s most recent venture. Now Giselle has a job in New York (State) and Helena is going to try her hand at writing a book again. _I fear I will always be a restless soul in this world,_ she writes, _of it, and yet still so utterly alien_.

 _You just need to find yourself again in the now_ , Myka writes. That sentence doesn't even make grammatical sense; she immediately deletes it.

 

 

The Regents come for Artie, one day. Or at least that's how Steve tells it, when they get back from Capetown: that Kosan just walked in one day, while he and Artie were talking stock, and Kosan just greeted him and nodded, and Artie just stood up and walked out with him. “‘Take care of the Warehouse, Agent Jinks,’ he said, ‘It won’t be much longer now.’”

“Do you think he’s gonna be a Regent?” Pete asks. “I mean, they are kind of short on them, I think, given all that's happened…”

“He'd like that.” Myka decides, for her own peace of mind, that that's what’s happened.

 

 

She overhears Pete on the phone, as she slips downstairs after her shower.

“But Mom, can't you —” He stops, listens, and starts again. “No, you don't know what the Warehouse means to me! To me _and_ Myka, to _us_! I can't — and it'll be a help to have experienced agents break in the newbies, right? That can only be a good thing.” More quiet, as Jane responds. “Just for a little while?” Space for another response, brief, and then the sound he makes isn't quite human.

It's a stage of grief, bargaining.

She turns the corner, and approaches him. He hangs up, and swipes at his red-rimmed eyes with the back of his hand.

“We can't expect special treatment.” It comes out all wrong, like a rebuke instead of the sympathy she intends. She tries to soften it. “But there's nothing wrong with trying. Do you want a hug?”

“Yeah.” And he staggers into her arms.

“I'm sorry.” Myka rubs a hand over his back. She loves him, she does, and she hates seeing him like this.

 

 

The H.G. Wells aisle fades out. Myka tries not to notice. At least her grappler doesn't leave with it.

 

 

She comes across Claudia in the office one day, sitting at the computer, typing away. And it's _almost_ like normal, except for that little black box she recognizes as an external hard drive.

“Has that been approved?” she asks, instead of a greeting. Claudia spins around, and they both grin a little sheepishly at each other. “Hey, Claud. It's good to see you.”

“You caught that, huh? I'm making a backup of the database, in case something goes screwy in the moving. First move since computers were invented, after all. And I _miiight_ be taking a copy of the ping system home with me to tweak a bit in my spare time. See if I can't improve artifact detection time. Maybe.”

Incorrigible. But if anyone can do it, and keep the project secure, she can. “You're going to run a very different Warehouse to the one Mrs. Frederic does, that's for sure.”

“I'm going to run a different Warehouse to the one _Artie_ did,” Claudia corrects her, and finger-guns.

Myka laughs, for what feels like the first time in a long while.

 

 

Somewhere in between all of this, Myka starts packing her things, pulls out the “M.O.B.” crate and carefully wraps up the more delicate items: her CDs, the antique books, the picture frames. Sometimes, she tears up. There's never any good way of saying goodbye.

 

 

Abigail and Steve leave next. There’s only about two days’ worth of the Warehouse left,  and any incoming pings are put into a holding queue for the next agents to take care of.

Abigail just disappears during the night, and the next morning the B&B holds no trace of her, save a small note in the middle of the kitchen counter, as if she’d just gone out for her morning jog. _I'm sorry I wasn't able to say goodbye. I wish you all the best, and please reach out if you need a therapist or someone to talk to._ The note is signed with a nearly incomprehensible e-mail address. It's probably a little tragic, that this doesn't really surprise her. Typical Regent cloak-and-dagger. It’s a shame; she liked Abigail.

“You want to head over with me or with Pete?” Myka asks Steve, keys jingling between her fingers. He’s an early riser like her, but he prefers to take his mornings slow, so it's generally a toss-up as to whom he'll go into work with.

“Actually, I'm not going back to the Warehouse.” Steve sets his mug of tea on the counter, and watches her reaction. “I'm going back to the ATF. I might try things with Liam again.”

She gulps in a breath with surprising difficulty, like the wind has been knocked out if her. “That's… I'm really glad for you, Steve. Uhm, do you need — do you need any help taking your things anywhere?”

“No, I already took my things down to the post office for shipping last week. But thanks.” _It is senseless to want what we cannot have_ , his mug reads.

“Is that new?” She points to the mug. Why he'd have gotten that for himself when the B&B has plenty of dishware eludes her… though it is very _him_. “Personalized?”

He arches his eyebrows a little wryly, smiling as he regards the ceramic. “No, I just found it in the front of the cupboard this morning.”

One more slice of the sort of everyday magic you get so used to here. They smile at each other.

“I'm really gonna miss you.”

“Me, too.”

He sets down his tea, and she hugs him, tightly. “Don't be a stranger.”

 

 

Pete still hasn't even started packing. It itches at her, as she sees at all his things still strewn around his room. But she does her best to be gentle. “Putting things off doesn't make them any easier,” she tells him that night, softly.

“Tomorrow,” he says, “I'll do it tomorrow.”

She doesn't think he will.

“Thanks for being patient with me, Mykes.”

“Of course.” It doesn't feel self-evident, all her patience, not any more. At least he appreciates it.

 

 

But there isn't a “tomorrow.” They wake up, get ready, drive to the Warehouse together — though they have no clue what they might do there — and it's gone.

The place is the right one. That flat, dusty depression they walked across every day for the past five years, is exactly as she remembers it. Except that there's no Warehouse there anymore.

“You think the football is still hanging around?” Pete asks.

She laughs, at the absurdity of the small things they focus on to ignore the large ones, laughs so as not to cry.

(They wait, just to see if it is. The sky stays empty.)

 

 

At the end of their return trip, a “For Sale” sign crouches at the beginning of the B&B drive, with matching crates beside it.

She pulls over, gasping in a breath. “It's really gone, Pete. All of it.” Her voice is wet, and so are her eyes.

He kisses her, and they cry; his sobs wrack his entire body, while her tears stream silently down her cheeks.

 

 

She doesn't know how long they sit there, in quiet mourning; it doesn't really matter, anyways.

She hasn't sent her things anywhere yet, because she doesn't know where to send them _to_ . They could go back to Colorado Springs, but that’s not where _she_ wants to go.

She doesn't know where she wants to go. Where does anyone go when their home isn’t there anymore?

“I guess we still have jobs with the Secret Service.” She toys with the idea out loud. It seems flat, now, flat and bleak and lifeless, but everything else seems just as much if not more so.

“I guess we do.” He looks at her, and she looks at him, and she unlocks the trunk.

 

 

They're not put back on protection detail, not right away. They're investigating, potential threats. And it's good to still work with him, good to still be putting her skills to use, but there's little of the same adrenaline and none of the wonder.

She moves into his apartment, because his place is bigger and why not?

The previous Myka Bering, the Myka Bering most people here still vaguely remember, would have laughed outright at the idea that she could ever be with Pete Lattimer. It's unsettling to have your own ghost haunting your footsteps.

 

 

“I think—” Pete kisses her as he backs her towards the bedroom. “We should celebrate—” another kiss — “bagging that guy.”

“I don't know, Pete.” She rests her hands on his lapels, turning her head slightly to the side. “It doesn't feel like much to celebrate.”

“We stopped someone who was going to try to set off a bomb!”

“Yeah, and it probably wouldn't have gone off either way.” She sighs, and offers him a tired smile. “At least he's getting help, now.”

“Yeah.” Pete rests his forehead against her temple, brushing his lips over her cheek. “Feels a little like the old days, helping people, saving the world.” Pulling back, he offers her that boyish grin, the one she can't help but smile back at. “You know, after some of those cases, I always wondered what it would be like if you and me —”

“Okay, no! I do not need to hear your — fantasies — about —” But she's his _girlfriend_ , shouldn't she _want_ — she punches him in the arm, instead of trying any further to find words, to piece apart her thoughts.

His eyes darken. “I know you know what that does to me.”

“I know.” And he wants her, and she loves him, and it’s easy to let him have her (even if it still feels like something is missing).

 

 

_It was sweeping round swiftly and steadily, this flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat. I perceived it coming towards me by the flashing bushes it touched, and was too astounded and stupefied to stir._

“Morning, babe,” he mumbles, as he shuffles to the counter where she's left his mug of coffee to cool.

She doesn't look up from _The War of the Worlds_ she's reading with her cereal. “Morning.”

_I heard the crackle of fire in the sand-pits and the sudden squeal of a horse that was as suddenly stilled. Then it was as if an invisible yet intensely heated finger were drawn—_

“How come I'm always the one to start the sex?” he asks, the words sleep-slurred, so it takes her a moment to really register them.

“Wait, what?” Sharp, because he wants to bring this up _now_? When they have to leave for work (she has to drag his butt out the door) in half an hour? “‘Start the sex’ isn't even an actual phrase—”

“Mykes.” His morning ‘dial it down’ gesture. “Just let me.”

She lifts her hands, nodding for him to continue. “Sorry.”

“How come you don't ever really seem to want to have sex with me? I mean, am I doing something wrong? You used to tell me when what I was doing wasn't working for you.” It sounds practiced, far too clear for usual him at this hour. How long has this been on his mind?

“What? No, you're fine, you're doing perfectly — perfectly fine. No complaints.” He makes sure she comes at least once, and he cares about her pleasure, and it might not be mind-blowing but she really, really has no complaints.

_— were drawn through the heather between me and the Martians—_

“Well, that's hardly a five-star review,” he mutters.

She sighs, and finally gives up on reading. “Well, what do you want me to say? ...Never mind, don't answer that. We need to get going.”

He stuffs a doughnut in his mouth, and she suppresses a cringe.

 

 

It's harder to ignore all the little things, when it's just the two of them. When she doesn't even have her own room to retreat to. The crumbs on the counter, how he wants to keep her up half the night and waste half the morning dozing, not just sometimes but every. single. weekend. She reads beside him while he plays his Halo or Diablo or Super Mario Brothers, but it doesn't feel cozy or family-like, like it did when Leena was baking in the kitchen and Artie was playing the piano and Claudia alternated between cheering Pete on, giving him advice, and worming her way into yet another top-secret database from her laptop balanced precariously on the arm of the sofa. Now, it just feels disconnected, like two puzzle pieces missing the bits in between.

 

 

Steve is settling in fine with the ATF again, and to hear him tell it things are going well enough with Liam. She hopes he isn't just putting on a good face, but then she's never known him to lie. The tone is just a little melancholy, that's all. Her emails probably sound the same.

She finds a message in her inbox one day, from “Next Generation,” no subject, no sender address. There's not much to it, just Claudia assuring Myka she's okay, and she’ll be fine in the future, too, and she hopes Myka’s doing well. Somehow, Myka knows this will be the last she hears from Claudia. _Say hi to H.G. for me, the next time you see her. I think you should talk with her soon. I know she'd love to hear more from you._

Myka wonders just how close the two of them are — or were, or still are? — and an irrational stab of jealousy threatens to gut her.

 

 

“Emily Lake” is publishing a new book, or so she writes Myka in her latest e-mail. _Indulge me setting up this little game, darling. I shan't tell you the title, nor my pen name, because I'd like to see how long you take to pick it out. I'm quite certain you'll know it when you see it._

This feels wrong, too. _I thought we were supposed to solve puzzles together,_ and no matter how hard she tries she can't make that sound any less whiny. She hates it, but she leaves it in.

And she starts scouring bookstores.

 

 

 _Twisted Time and Sparks Afly_ , she sees one day, by Eileen G. Wellington. A dark-haired seductress stares out at her from the cover, a far-too familiar stunner weapon in her hand and her chin lifted in something like a dare. It’s tucked onto a corner stand in a shelf, instead of put out in the center of the window like it belongs. Myka buys it without even looking at the synopsis.

 

 

“Come to bed, babe.” It's not a demand or a plea, but maybe a little of both.

She looks up from the book, slowly untucking her legs from beneath her in the armchair. “What time is it?” She hasn't lost herself in a book like this in a long time, but this is the very best of H.G. Wells and better. She can see so much of Helena in this, Helena now, and a new side of her, in this story about someone from the past who wakes up to an incomprehensible future.

“I don't know, two, three in the morning? Way too late. Or early. Or both. Time to sleep. Usually you're the one talking about work tomorrow.” Pete rambles when he's tired and has to speak anyways.

“Oh god! Sorry, I just… book.” She gestures at the cover, and he nods.

It's nice, to have that kind of shorthand figured out with someone. _The one person who knows you better than anyone else_ , and maybe that someone is Pete now. (Or maybe it still isn't, because she just wants to finish reading.)

 

 

“This isn't gonna work out, is it, Mykes?” he asks, in the car on their way to their latest person of interest’s residence. There's no recrimination in the question, no self-pity, just a bone-deep sort of sorrow.

“What do you mean? This investigation?” She knows, though, or at least she thinks she might.

“Us.” He gestures between them. “This. Our relationship.”

“What makes you say that?” She can't — she just can't. He's her partner.

“You're not happy. Not like you were.” Gently, he says this, like he needs to ease her into the idea. “And I care about you, and I want you to be happy.”

“Of course I'm not happy, Pete! It's not like it used to be!” She doesn't know where this vehemence is coming from; this isn't like her. “I'm sorry.” She forces herself to be quieter. “I miss it all, you know?”

“Of course I know.” He sounds mildly insulted, like he doesn't know how she could think otherwise.

“I didn't mean it like _that_.” And it's snippy and also not her.

“I know.” Bitterness lurks there, somewhere.

“A-are you mad at me, or at the world? Or at yourself?” She shakes her head at him, because she cannot _stand_ this passive-aggressive bullshit, and it's not like him either.

Road noise fills the silence, as the seconds stretch into double digits and she can see him really thinking it over.

“I think I'm a little mad at everything, right now.” She isn't sure if he means it as a confession, or if it's a revelation to him as well. Another pause, and then, “We aren't good for each other, are we? Not like this.”

She doesn't want to say it, doesn't want to admit that even this isn't right any longer. “I guess we're not.”

He pulls over, and for the second time that spring they cry together in the car. They may have survived the blast, but they’re breaking apart on impact.

 

 

She moves out as soon as she can, puts her things in storage and puts her resignation in with the Secret Service. There are far too many ghosts here, ghosts and scars and stumbling blocks. She needs a clean break, needed it months ago. Maybe, just maybe, she understands a little better now what Helena did.

 

 

She tries to find the words to talk about Helena’s book to her, tries and fails. _I did recognize it the moment I saw it,_ is all she says, finally, on that topic. _Where are you living right now? I'd like to visit you._

 _I'm not sure that's a good idea,_ Helena replies. But she gives an address anyways.

 

 

Myka is not the kind to just show up on people’s doorsteps, but it really does seem like Helena is the exception.

Except it's not Helena who answers the door, it's a different woman, petite and olive-skinned, with dark curls tumbling over her shoulders.

“Uhm, hi, is — is —” Myka really wants to avoid a repeat of the Nate thing; she isn't here with the Warehouse, just looking for a friend. “Does she still go by Emily?”

The woman — Giselle, Myka guesses — wrinkles her brow, and glances back inside the apartment. “Hel? I think she wants you.”

“She?” And then there's Helena in the foyer, drying her hands on her jeans, and when their gazes meet Myka could swear she pales and flushes at the same time. “Myka! I —” She glances at… her _girlfriend,_ Myka forces herself to think, though it feels like swallowing chunk of ice just a little too large. “ _We_ weren't expecting you.”

“No, we certainly weren't.” Giselle arches an eyebrow at Helena, but extends her hand. “Hi, I'm Giselle.”

“Yeah, she's told me about you.” Myka shakes her hand. She’s happy for the both of them, really, she is. “I’m Myka. It's great meet you.”

“I haven't heard a thing about you yet.” Giselle glances at Helena again. “To hear her talk, you'd think she'd met no one and done nothing until she became a forensic scientist in the middle of nowhere, Wisconsin.”

“I told you, darling, I spent a great deal of time with _books_. There isn't much there to tell.” And if Myka didn't know better herself, she might just believe her. “You don't get up to much with a roommate-slash-research-partner, I promise. Myka, do come in.”

“Thanks.” She wipes her shoes, and offers a polite smile that maybe comes out more of a grimace, and they all shuffle out of the narrow foyer.

“Roommate like her? _Damn_ , Hel, you did know you were gay back then, right?” She doesn't whisper quite quietly enough, not for Myka, who has been conditioned to listen for strange quiet voices where you least expect them. “Sorry, know you were _bi_ already.”

“I've been well aware of my ‘bisexuality,’” and she says the word like she's still getting used to the taste of it, “for far, far longer than you, I'll wager.” Helena doesn't bother to keep her voice down.

“I told you, I realized I was gay in, like, fourth grade.” It sounds like an old back-and-forth.

“And I keep telling you, I realized I loved women as well as men in 1884.”

Giselle lets out some small grunt of frustration. “Fine, don't tell me. Again.”

Myka shouldn't be happy that Giselle doesn't know _everything_ , but her stomach flutters a little nonetheless.

 

 

“Did she do this thing back in college, too?” Giselle asks, accompanied by the quiet _snick_ of her knife through carrot. “This ‘I'm from the Victorian Era’ joke? Like, sometimes it's cute in a quirky way —” _charming_ , Myka mentally corrects, _the word you're looking for is dangerously charming_ , “and sometimes it just drives me absolutely _nuts_. I had to sneak a look at her driver’s license to figure out her actual birthday.”

“I did tell you it was the 12th of August.” Helena pushes the noodles and onions around in the wok. “And I’m right here, in case you’d forgotten.”

“Yeah, but then you always followed it up with ‘1868.’” Giselle reaches for a bell pepper. “And I’ve already told you this, so now I’m telling Myka.” She glances towards where Myka stands just outside of the small kitchen area. “You know, sometimes I half-believe it, like her knowledge of the time period is _phenomenal_ , and she still acts like the refrigerator  and microwave are these new and amazing inventions. But, I mean.” She waves her knife dismissively, a gesture that makes Myka clench. Giselle and H.G. have a similar disregard for safety, that’s for sure. “There's no such thing as immortality. Or, like, time travel.”

 _Yes, there is_ , Myka wants to say. _On both accounts. Some form of it anyway._

She glances at Helena, who happens to be looking over her shoulder; their gazes slide together, and linger. There’s a sort of helpless indulgence, of people who just can't know, and it's good to have someone around who does know, a shared secret, a quiet bond. When Myka looks back at Giselle, the other girl is watching Helena and her, brow wrinkled.

Myka’s been asked a question. “Yeah, Helena’s been doing that for as long as I've known her.”

“I don't know if I should be relieved it's not just me, or worried.” Giselle laughs, ducking her head, a little wryly, and then nudges Helena with her hip as she adds the vegetables to the pot. “Gorgeous weirdo.”

“I _think_ that's a compliment...” Helena nudges back once Giselle is finished, perhaps a little harder than necessary.

Myka is quick to reassure her, “It is.”

 

 

It's a small apartment, with a fairly open floor plan, so of course Myka sees part of and hears most of their goodbye. She turns her back, wandering to the far side of the living room to try to give them some privacy. But if you're trying so hard _not_ to hear something…

“We need to talk, Hel. I'm serious. I've been trying to give you your space and privacy, but I don't like things — _people_ — being hidden from me. Tomorrow, or sometime this weekend, maybe.”

“I didn't _hide_ her from you. I did say I kept up with some old friends via e-mail. I never really expected her to just—” Myka can almost hear Helena shaking her head. “But you're right, I should have.”

Sometimes, just sometimes Myka wants to be just as damn cocky as H.G. was: _if some small part of you didn't want me here, you would never have given me your address_. But she won't. She's never been that sort of person (except “never” and “that sort of person” seem to flee out the window when Helena enters the room).

“We'll talk about that, too. Later. Go see your guest now.”

“Wait,” Helena _demands_ , and then there's the sound of someone being backed against the door, a muffled, needy whimper, and it's seventeen long seconds before Myka finally hears, “ _Now_ you can go.”

“Bitch,” Giselle mutters, but there's plenty of affection and no trace of venom.

The door opening and closing, the click of a latch, and then Helena returns, one hand on her hip and running her fingers through her hair.

Myka is suddenly lost for words.

 

 

“So.” Helena makes the word almost an entire sentence as she settles on the couch beside Myka, close, but not too close. Expectation hovers in the air (in her aura, Leena might have said, and maybe that was what an aura actually was).

“So, this whole ‘I'm from the Victorian Era’ thing?” It's not what she came here to talk about, but it's the easiest.

Helena exhales, slowly, and leans back. “Oh, I know it's ridiculous. No one believes I'm _actually_ over a century old, and my official documents say 1979. I just…” She stares at the ceiling, shaking her head minutely, the way she does when she's searching for words. “I knew I needed to do something differently this time. This way feels a little bit less like lying.”

Myka hums, and it's not assent or dissent, just sympathy. “I guess it's hard.” She looks down at her hands, runs them down to her knees.

“Of course it's difficult.” Helena snaps the edges of the consonants between her teeth, leaving them sharp, jagged. “Myka, look at me.” Despite herself, Myka glances up at her. “What did you come here for?”

Myka swallows, and glances away again. When she finally finds the words, they crack wetly in the back of her throat. “How did you do it? Just — leave the Warehouse behind? How _can_ you — I'm so lost without it.” It's a relief, to get it out, all of it, to someone who isn't struggling alongside her. “Pete and I, we're not — we just don't work without the Warehouse. Claudia’s gone, just — gone. I'll probably never see her again. Artie’s gone, too, and so is Abigail. I think — I _think_ Steve’s doing okay, but I can't _know_ , and we're all trying, but you can't just — _forget_ , endless wonder like that.”

Helena chokes out some mangled parody of a laugh. “Of course you can't _forget_. It's senseless to even try.”

“ _You_ managed to get away.” And it's partially an accusation, one she didn't mean to level here and now, one she ends up voicing anyways.

“You really think —” Disbelief floods Helena’s tone. “For God’s sake, Myka — Nate broke things off, Adelaide’s —” She shakes her head. “ _You're_ here. I haven’t the slightest idea what will happen with Giselle after this — that _I'm_ here, in this time, at all —!” Gesturing demonstratively, she meets Myka’s gaze, as if that's supposed to help her understand.

Myka doesn't.

Helena licks her lips, and tries again. “That's the downside of the Warehouse, Myka. It might destroy you, drive you mad, or abandon you —” and they both know the Warehouse is something alive, something sentient — “but it never, ever lets you go.”

Myka shakes her head. “That can't be — there has to be _something_. Something you can do, something —” She doesn't even know what she wants to happen; she doesn't want to forget, but remembering hurts, too.

“If there is any solution,” Helena says quietly as she shifts closer, lays an arm around Myka’s shoulders, pulls her into a gentle hug Myka didn’t realize she’s been starving for, “I haven't found it yet.”

 

 

There’s a crater where the rest of her life used to be, and too much is broken, and she doesn't even know where to begin to pick up the pieces. But she's not alone, and sometimes you just have to stumble forwards from wherever you’ve landed.

She starts composing an email to the address Abigail left.

**Author's Note:**

> So. I have an idea for a sequel/coda scene. Not sure if or when I'll ever write it, though it's honestly long past time I post some Bering and Wells smut here.


End file.
